Improvement in grain-drills



- A tutcd gratte JOHN HENRY THOMAS AND PHINEAS P. MAST, OF SPRINGFIELD, OHIO.

Letters .Patent No. 97,729, dated December 7, 1869.

IMPROVEMENT IN i GRAIN-DRILLS.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making partof the saine.

` To all whom 'it may concern.-

hereby declare that the following is a ful-i, clear, and

exact description thereof,lreference being had to the accompanying drawings, Ifnaking part of this specification, and to theletters of reference marked thereon, like letters indicating lilte parts wherever they occur. To enable others skilled in the art to construct and use our inventionwe, wiliproceed to describe it.

Our invention relatesto grain-drills; and It consists in a novel manner Of constructing and arranging the parts to which the drag-bars are attached', so that the drill-teeth maybe made to form two series, one'in front of the other, or be all arranged in one series, in line,in tllemannerhereinafter described.

'Figure 1 is a top plan view of the frame, with the 4 hopper and seeding-devices removed;

Figure 2 is a longitudinal vertical sec-tion of the same, on the line .fc x of fig. 1 and Figure 3 is a bottom plan view of the front portion.

Our present invention may be considered as an improvement on the patent granted to us in connection with O. O. Gardner, August 3, 1869.

In that, the drag-bars were attached to. two crossbars, one of which was stationary, and the other movable, as in this; but in that case, the movable bar was in rear of the stationary one; and when it was dev sired to arrange the drill-tubes in -a single line, the

rear bar was moved forward in line with the stationary one.

In practice, we nd that plan objectionable, for the reason that all the drag-bars lbeing moved to the eX- treme front end of the frame, tend to make the front end of the tongue bear down upon the necks of the team, thus increasing the labor of operating the drill. Our present invention is intended to overcome this difculty, and to cause the machine to be more evenly balanced.

We make the frame A in the usual manner, as represented in fig. 1, and secure a stationary cross-bar,

B, a short distance from the front, as shown in igs. y

1, 2, and 3. To this stationary bar B we attach one` set of the dragbars, as represented by D in the drawings.

We then provide a movable cross-bar,` O, which is secured under .the frame, at its extreme front end, by a bolt, a, at each end; and to this movable bar we attach the other half ot' the drag-bars E, as represented in iigs. 1 and 2.

When it is desired to bring all the drill-tubes into a single line, the bolts a are taken out, and the bar C is moved back, and refastened by the bolts, directly un- 4der the stationary barvB. as represented in fig. 3.

It will be observed that the bars D are secured to' the under face ofthe cross-bar B, near its front, while the drag-bars E-are secured to the rear edge of the cross-bar O, and that the latter has notches e cut in its rear edge, at the points Opposite the ends4 of the drag-bars D, so that when the bar C is moved back, the drag-bars I) and E may all be brought directly in line, as represented in fig. 3.

By this method of constructing and arranging the parts, we accomplish the desired change in a very simple and expeditious manner, and produce a vmachine that is more perfectly balanced, and therefore operates better, besides being extremely cheap and simple in itsuconstruction.

Having thus described our invention,

What we claim, is-

1.` A grain-drill, having two sets of drag-bars, one set being hinged to a stationary bar, B, and the other set being hinged to a movable bar, O, the latter being arranged to besecured at the front, Or 'moved back so as to bring the points of hinging of lthe two sets in line, substantially as described.'

2. Attaching the drag-bars Dto the underside ofthe cross-bar B, and the drag-bars E to the rear edge of the movable bar O, so as to bring the drill-tubes all in line, when the bar ismoved back, substantially as de.- scribed. JOHN HENRY THOMAS.

PHINEAS P. MAST.

i Witnesses:

J. W. THOMAS, C. E. THOMAS. 

